Читать книгу Madame Claire - Susan Ertz - Страница 8

Table of Contents

The “Heavenly Chariot” was Judy’s name for the Bennetts’ shining gray car. The Pendletons had one of their own, an elderly and dignified Daimler, but for some reason unfathomable by the younger members of the family, it was never allowed out at night, when it was most wanted. Millicent thought that Forbes, the old chauffeur and ex-coachman, required his evenings to himself, and as Forbes had never been known to object to this arrangement, it stood, and the family relied on taxis, or the underground.

So that Judy was feeling uncommonly luxurious close on eleven that night, when the beautiful gray nose of the Heavenly Chariot thrust its way through the fog that had shut London from the sky for three days past. She loved the movement, the mystery of the dark streets, the soft menace of the fog.

“This is the very essence of London,” she thought.

They turned into Pall Mall, and she was sorry to think that the perfect motion would cease in a moment. What happened next, happened with such amazing suddenness that in three seconds it became a problem already to be reckoned with, a situation to be met as best one could.

They had knocked some one down in the fog. An instant before she had been reveling in that smooth slipping along—almost the annihilation of friction—and now, between the ticks of a clock, some one, because of this inconsequential little journey of theirs, was robbed of health perhaps, or life. While her mind was struggling to accept a fact so hateful, her feet had taken her to the front of the car almost before the chauffeur had brought it to a standstill. Their victim had clung to that long gray nose—clung for an instant and then gone down. Another man was bending over him, drawing him gently into the pool of radiance their lights made.

“Chip!” the other man was saying. “Chip, old man, are you badly hurt?”

There was no answer. Judy put her arm under the limp man’s shoulder, and they raised him up. He stood swaying between them.

“Take him to the car,” she said.

A constable (who seemed nebulous all but his buttons, which the light caught) loomed up out of the blackness, and demanded names and addresses. Mills, the chauffeur, seemed unable to cope with the disaster, which he considered had come upon them ready-made, out of the night.

“It was my friend’s fault entirely,” said the other man. “He started to cross without looking.”

“Can’t be too careful a night like this,” remarked the constable, making entries in his notebook.

The victim suddenly straightened himself and said in a thick voice, “I’m perfectly all right.” Then he became limp again.

It was at this moment that Noel arrived, having been keeping a look-out, as instructed by Judy. The wail of metal-studded tires being brought to a sudden stop had attracted his notice, and he came out to see what was up. The constable, observing his empty sleeve, addressed him as Captain, and things began to progress. Like many another policeman who has to do with street crossings, this one considered women biological absurdities. Mills and the victim’s friend got “Chip” into the car and made him as comfortable as possible. Noel sat outside with Mills, and Judy sat beside the injured man, overcoming an almost uncontrollable impulse to draw that bending head down to her shoulder.

For the belief had come to her, at the moment when she saw Chip’s white face in the glare from their lamps, that they had chosen the nicest man in all London to knock down.

His friend, who sat sideways in one of the small seats, introduced himself as Major Stroud, and the victim, on whom he kept an anxious eye, as Major Crosby.

“He’ll be all right as soon as we get him home and to bed,” he assured Judy. “It’s too bad, but you’re not in any way to blame. Saw the whole thing, so I know. Crosby’s always walking into things. He’s everlastingly thinking about that book of his. I tried to grab his arm, but it was too late.”

“How badly do you think he’s hurt?” She could hear the injured man’s laborious breathing, and was heartsick.

“Oh, just a knock on the head, I expect, against that curb. Thank Heaven it was no worse. Your chauffeur did splendidly. Can’t think how he avoided running over him.”

“But a knock on the head may mean——”

“Now don’t you worry about it, Miss——”

“Pendleton,” Judy said.

“Miss Pendleton. I’ll ring up the doctor as soon as we get to his rooms. He’s pretty tough—aren’t you, Chip old man?”

He put an affectionate hand on his friend’s knee. At that moment Chip swayed suddenly toward Judy’s fur-wrapped shoulder.

“Better let me sit there, Miss Pendleton,” suggested Major Stroud. “He’s no light weight.”

“It’s all right,” said Judy. “I was a V.A.D. for years.” She slipped her hand down to his wrist and felt his pulse. “Why do you say he’s always thinking about his book? What book?”

“Oh, Chip’s a writer, you see. He’s always writing something. Just now it’s a book on religions. Queer hobby for a fighting chap, isn’t it?”

The car sang its way up Campden Hill while Judy listened to what Major Stroud had to say about his friend. He was evidently devoted to him. When they stopped at last, purring softly before a narrow house in a narrow turning off Church Street, she felt she knew more about the two of them than she did about many people she had known far longer.

“Make short work of things now,” said the Major in his brisk way as he got out. “Come along, Chip old man.”

Very gently he and Mills lifted him out, and carried him into the house and up three flights of excessively dark and narrow stairs, while Judy and Noel followed behind. They had to pause once or twice as the weight and length of their burden made getting round corners very difficult.

“I’m going to wait till the doctor comes,” said Noel. “Hadn’t you better go home in the car now, Judy?”

“Why should I?” she demanded. “Can’t I wait too? I dare say I can help. Noel, isn’t it ghastly?”

“I like Chip,” said Noel. “It’s funny, but I did the moment I saw him. Didn’t you?”

Judy nodded, unable to say much. Her throat ached, and she knew she was not very far from tears. It was so grotesque and unreal, that they should have caused this unnecessary suffering.

Major Stroud telephoned to the doctor, and Mills went to fetch him, as being the quickest way. Meanwhile Noel and the Major got Chip into bed.

Judy, left to herself, explored the little flat. She lit a gas-ring in the tiny kitchenette and put a kettle on. Then she found a small store of brandy which she brought out in case it was wanted. As she busied herself getting ready things the doctor might ask for she made herself well acquainted with Chip’s home. The sitting room possessed two solidly comfortable chairs and a sofa, all covered in brown linen. There was a gate-legged table, two etchings by Rops, and a vast number of books on religious subjects. Except for the books and the etchings it was as impersonal a room as a man could have. It touched her, it was so—she searched for a word—so starved.

“Man cannot live by books alone, my poor Chip,” she thought. She seemed to see again the kindly, tired lines about his mouth and eyes. She imagined a lonely life for him, with Major Stroud as the only close human tie. They had been through two campaigns together, the latter had told her. Fancy calling the Great War a campaign! She smiled at the thought. A hard-bitten man, the Major. She supposed the two were about of an age—say, forty-three. Bachelors? Oh, undoubtedly.

Then the doctor arrived—a cheerful, bustling man with a short gray beard. He seemed to have known the two of them for years.

“I helped to bring this young man into the world,” he told Judy, clapping an affectionate hand on the Major’s solid shoulder. That gentleman, who didn’t look as though he could possibly have needed help on that or any other occasion, smiled a little sheepishly, and then the bedroom door closed upon them. Noel and Judy, left in unhappy suspense in the sitting room looked at one another.

“Why couldn’t you have knocked down some drunken rotter?” asked Noel, walking about the room with his hand in his pocket. “Why pick out Chip?”

Strange how the name had made itself at home with both of them!

“Why? Oh, Noel, I can’t bear it to be true! Haven’t we dreamt it all? If anything happens to him——”

“If only there are no beastly consequences,” said Noel, frowning, ”you may have done everybody a good turn in the end. I mean—he seems such a decent sort—I like him. And I think he might like us.”

Judy nodded.

“But I’m afraid it’s concussion, Noel.”

“It may be only very slight. Well, we’ll know in a few minutes. There was a terrible bump on his forehead, but we couldn’t find any other marks.”

“Suppose we’d killed him!” It wasn’t like Judy to suppose ghastly possibilities. “If I hadn’t gone to the club to pick you up,” she mused, “if I’d gone straight home, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh, hush, Judy! What’s the good of all that? Look here”—he paused in front of her—“Chip evidently isn’t well off. I intend to arrange with the doctor, about bills. So you back me up, won’t you?”

“Of course. I’d thought of that too. And Noel——”

“Well?”

“Let’s keep this to ourselves. I’d much rather not tell the family anything about it. Wouldn’t you?”

“Much. It’s our affair.”

“I’ve hardly spent any of my allowance lately. We’ll go halves about the bills.… Don’t even tell Gordon, will you?”

“Gordon? He’s about the last person I’d tell.”

Here the doctor returned, followed by Major Stroud. They closed the bedroom door softly.

“Nothing to worry about,” the doctor told them cheerfully, in that hearty voice common to the medical profession. “A man might come off worse in the hunting field any day, and no one make a fuss about it. Slight concussion and bruises, and that’s all, young lady.”

“Well, it’s quite enough,” said she. “I hate concussions. And there really are no bones broken? You’re not trying to spare our feelings?”

“Word of honor as a father of seven. You can come and see your victim with your own eyes in a day or two. Major Stroud will spend the night here on the sofa, and the nurse will be on hand in the morning, if she’s wanted. So now, Miss Juggernaut, you may roll home with a peaceful mind.”

“You’ve cheered us up a lot, sir,” said Noel, shaking hands with him.

Major Stroud took them to the door, after writing down their telephone number on a pad that the methodical Chip had hanging over his desk.

“You’ll tell him, when he comes to, how sorry we are, and how … how anxious?”

But the Major shook his head at her.

“I’ll leave that to you,” he said as they parted. “He’ll get the devil of a talking to from me—careless beggar.”

They gave the news to the waiting Mills, and drove home with little talk. When Judy reached the door of her room, she kissed Noel good night.

“I’m glad we decided not to tell any one,” she whispered. “Mother would look him up in Who’s Who. It would be horrible.”

“What about Claire?”

“Oh, we can tell her, of course.”